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Comics A.M. | Ali Ferzat named one of Time’s Most Influential People

Creators | Ali Ferzat, the Syrian cartoonist who was abducted and beaten last year because of his criticisms of the government, was named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World.” “Tyrants often don’t get the jokes, but their people do,” Pulitzer Prize-winning Politico cartoonist Matt Wuerker writes in his tribute to Ferzat. “So when the iron fist comes down, it often comes down on cartoonists.” [Time]

Publishing | In one of its wide-ranging interviews with comics publishers, the retail news and analysis site ICv2 talks with Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson about the state of the market, the loss of Borders, his company’s 2011 layoffs, webcomics, and some early missteps with its digital program: “Quite honestly we’ve run into a few issues because the programs that we’ve done haven’t worked as well as we wished. We created some exclusive material and got less participation than we had hoped for. […] We gave codes out to retail stores to drive customers into their stores. They could pick up the exclusive content by going to their participating comic shop. Evidently we didn’t do a good enough job getting the word out, so we’re retooling that.” [ICv2.com]

Conventions | And last but not least, Fan Expo Vancouver debuts Friday from Hobby Star Marketing, the company behind Toronto Comicon. [Straight]

Creators | Hark! A Vagrant cartoonist Kate Beaton is interviewed by her hometown newspaper: “You make something because you want to make it. First of all, there are no editors or anybody telling you what to do and you end up making something that’s more like a labour of love. And if you are lucky enough, like me, and people kind of latch on to it, it’s a surprise for sure. But not wholly, because you have ambition, too. You work hard at something and want to make it so that people like it.” [Cape Breton Post]

Comics | Matthew Brady looks at some of the comics and creators he discovered at last weekend’s Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo. [Warren Peace Sings the Blues]

Commentary | Following his write-up on Before Watchmenwe linked to Wednesday, David Brothers pens another piece titled “The Ethical Rot Behind Before Watchmen and The Avenger,” detailing why he’s no longer buying Marvel and DC comics. “I’m too conscious of the wrongdoings of both companies to be able to support them and not feel complicit and terrible in their exploitative and unjust practices.” [ComicsAlliance]